Cross-Country Road Trip! Day 33-35, Mile 6350: Having a Capitol Time. Except for the D.C. Bitchslap.

Adding to the list of places I didn't expect to see a major building by Frank Gehry, we found this lovely specimen as we were leaving Roanoke, VA, in the morning. It's the Taubman Museum of Art, and it's not actually designed by Gehry, but by a protege of his named Randall Stout. Quite a departure from the mostly conventional architecture of downtown Roanoke. Had we known it existed, we might have planned a visit.

Oh, well, you can't see everything.

Rather than head directly to D.C. for Roanoke, we decided to take a detour through the back roads of Virginia to Appomattox Court House. Since we saw where the Civil War started in Charleston, we felt an obligation to see it through to the bloody end.

These are some of the most beautiful roads in the country--tree-lined corridors of the purest green, rolling hills and meadows, broken by a few whitewashed clapboard farmhouses. It's idyllic. Pleasing to heart and soul.

I always thought Appomattox Court House was a structure, which it is, but it's also the name of the town. That's how they do in Virginia, I guess. 

Appomattox Court House, the town, is not a town, but a National Historical Park. It's largely a rather bucolic re-creation of the town that existed when Lee and his army were trapped here by Grant's forces. Minus a few dozen buildings and a lot of mud.

Appomattox Court House, the structure, is the red brick building left center. It is not where Lee surrendered to Grant. 

This is where the surrender was signed--the McLean house, a private residence a few houses away from the court house. In the town of Appomattox Court House, but not in the Appomattox court house. Which is where the confusion arises. 

The McLean house is on the road Lee's army was taking toward Appomattox Station, the railhead where trainloads of supplies awaited his hungry troops. Unfortunately for them, Sheridan's cavalry got there first, burned the supplies, and, with the help of 12,000 Federal troops, including 5,000 Black soldiers, blocked his way west.

Surrounded, Lee saw no choice but to throw in the towel.

Literally.

This is the tea towel the Confederates used as a flag of truce.

The room where Grant and Lee signed the surrender agreement has been preserved as it was that day.

In another room, presses were quickly set up to print parole passes for the surrendering troops.

Heading into the urban landscape of D.C. entailed dealing with Washington traffic. The lovely back roads gave way to bumper-to-bumper freeways.

Inching our way through that concrete maze, we eventually found our hotel in Silver Spring, Maryland, a suburb of the capitol.

I'd heard of Silver Spring, but had no real idea of what it might be like. I only knew it was not too far from downtown with convenient access to the Metro.

The town was founded in 1840 by Frances Preston Blair, an aide to Andrew Jackson. Blair fell off his horse near a mica-flecked spring and instantly fell in love. He purchased the land and built a house.

The house and the spring are long gone. All the remains is this acorn-shaped gazebo in a rather forlorn little pocket park where the spring used to be.

Downtown Washington was about 45 minutes by Metro, about half of that was walking to and from the station.

We walked across the Mall to the National Museum of the American Indian.

It's an imposing structure with four floors packed with an impressive array of artifacts from native cultures all over the Americas, from the Inuit of Alaska to the Mapuche of Chile.

Most impressive to me is that the exhibits have been curated by members of the tribes represented, instead of the usual whitesplaining.

So refreshing.

I love masks, and there were many.

And so many carvings of animals and spirit beings.

It is really a remarkable museum. We spent over three hours there, and could easily have spent longer.

O was very excited to see this native painting of the Battle of Little Bighorn (the Battle of the Greasy Grass to the native participants). She has seen photos of it many times, but seeing the original was quite a thrill.

It is paired with a idealized painting from the mid-1800s of American Progress, symbolized by a chubby white woman in flowing draperies sweeping away the benighted savages as she guides the inevitable tide of civilizing settlers to their Manifest Destiny. 

Ugh.

That evening, we visited with old friends who live about an hour away in Baltimore. The traffic (early rush hour) was abominable, so it was with considerable delight that we arrived in their calm, beautiful neighborhood.

The area used to be a mill town and many of the houses have been converted from mill workers' apartments to lovely single-family homes.

This old warehouse has been converted to a sculptors's studio.

We went to their favorite crab eatery for blue crab.

We're used to ordering one Dungeness crab for the two of us. With the smaller blue crabs, it's three or four per person.

The whole mess of Old Bay-smothered steamed crustaceans gets dumped on the table, and the free-for-all-feast begins.

It's a scene of utter destruction.

Look at the glee on those faces. We were pretty happy to see each other, too.

Next day, we took a bus tour of D.C.

So many historic buildings. Here's Forest Service HQ.

The National Museum of African American History is designed to resemble a Yoruban headdress.

Looking across the tidal basin at the Jefferson Memorial and the Washington Monument. 

The city is refreshingly low-rise. The Monument is the tallest structure in the capitol.

Downtown is filled with dozens of interesting and historic structures.

The China-America Friendship Gate features hundreds of dragons symbolizing good fortune.

After lunch, we visited the International Spy Museum.

They have the original gadget-crammed silver birch Aston-Martin from Goldfinger.

Amazing gadgets explain a great deal of the attraction of spying. Who could resist an escape radio concealed in a false scrotum? 

The museum covers the history of espionage from Elizabethan times to the present in both real life and fiction. It is all well-organized and well-presented, with attention paid to the contradictions between the need to protect national security and the maintenance of a free, democratic society, including a well-done presentation on our ill-conceived descent into legalized torture in the period following 9/11.

There are lots of fascinating artifacts, like this dummy tank built as part of the elaborate deception operations leading up to D-Day.

And this replica of the first weaponized submersible, built in 1775 to attack the British fleet in New York Harbor. The pod on the side held a timed explosive device to be attached to the underside of a British warship. The Turtle was never successful.

Everything was going well until one night I hit this divider and tore the sidewall out of the front left tire. This piece of concrete sits in front of the crosswalk. There is a standard road divider behind the crosswalk, but this useless little half moon is placed in front where you don't expect there to be anything. It's almost impossible to see at night.

As you can see, I wasn't the first to hit the damn thing, and I'm sure I won't be the last.

Luckily, it happened only a couple blocks from our hotel, so I was able to park safely in the hotel lot until morning. Unfortunately, our car has no spare, so I had to call AAA. They towed me to a nearby tire store. Which was closed. So they towed me to another nearby tire store. Which had no appointments available and was going to close for good on Friday, which meant they were limited to the tires they had in stock.

I told the sales person my sad story and he just shook his head in commiseration: "You got the D.C. bitchslap." He explained that many people, the minute they get inside the Beltway, have a sudden onset of bad luck.

Taking pity, he fit me in, found a tire that worked, and everything worked out fine. 

Except for that damn bitchslap.

P.